Artistic director quits Orlando Ballet

In an abrupt upheaval at the Orlando Ballet, artistic director Bruce Marks quit Saturday night and was replaced Monday morning by Robert Hill, a former principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre.

Marks, 71, who said he left for personal reasons, had held the post since 2006, shortly after the death of former artistic director Fernando Bujones in late 2005.

The switch comes at a critical time for the 34-year-old company, Orlando's only full-time professional ballet troupe, which lost executive director Russell Allen in August and development director Debra Lowe last week. The company wound up the 2007-08 season nearly $500,000 in the red.

"What we're having here is a changeover," said board president Sibille Hart Pritchard. "There were a lot of things in the old regime we had to change. It's better for the ballet."

Marks' three-year contract was to have ended at the close of the 2008-09 season, but he told his dancers and then board members Saturday that he was leaving immediately. He's "in perfect health," he said, "but some of us do have personal lives, and this is a personal decision."

"I will miss my dancers terribly," he added.

The company is widely acknowledged as having made great strides under his leadership, which led to much more eclectic programming, including works by George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp and Marks' own Shake It Up, set to the music of the Cars.

Before coming to Orlando, Marks was artistic director of the Boston Ballet and before that Ballet West in Salt Lake City. As a performer he was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Danish Ballet.

"He did wonders for Orlando Ballet," Pritchard said. "Bruce has brought the company to a place where it's extremely good. I hope Robert can do the same thing."

Money woes have continued to plague the company that has been run largely by board members since Allen's departure. The ballet is presenting only five full-length performances of The Nutcracker in Orlando this season, rather than the nine it originally announced. In October it informed the Orlando Philharmonic that it would perform The Nutcracker to a taped accompaniment rather than spend $80,000 on the live music it had planned for from the Phil.

"It's a hardship for our musicians, who are taking the hit," said David Schillhammer, the orchestra's executive director.

Still, the ballet has recovered from its $500,000 deficit, Pritchard said, due to gifts from an anonymous "band of angels."

"Our main thing now is to fill the house," she said. "We have got to get bigger audiences, and we have to make sure expenses are in keeping with the product."

Marks finished his work on The Nutcracker and has prepared the repertory for the company's all-Balanchine program Feb. 6 to 8.

Pritchard said Hill will shape the Encore! production scheduled for late March, which is planned as a celebration of the ballet's 35th anniversary.

Marks said he had no advice for the ballet's new artistic director. "He's been a director. He knows all the pitfalls and the joys. But I do believe he's going to love working with these dancers."

Hill, 47, was artistic director from 2003 to 2007 of Mexico's Ballet de Monterrey (a company that Bujones also guided in the late 1990s) and has been a principal dancer for the New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet of London.

As a teenager he studied for two years with Liz Dussich Bevilacqua and Al Packard at the Dussich Dance Studio in Merritt Island.

Hill will start work in Orlando on Dec. 4. A search for a new executive director is expected to wind up early next year.